In the review of Cannery Anne, I speculated about the life and career of the author, Morris Hull. He seemed to have produced one novel and then given up writing altogether. A few days ago I received an email from his son, Walter Hull. Morris, it turns out, had a long, under-the-radar and maybe fairly typical mid-century literary career. Here’s the story from his son:
Morris Hull was born 2-23-1906 in Drummond, PA, the son of Walter A. and Mary Purves Hull. His father, a ceramics engineer, worked at a variety of posts all over the country, including Lookout Mt., TN, Chicago, Santa Fe, and Washington, D. C., not in that order. Morris graduated Notre Dame, worked briefly for a Chicago newspaper, the Herald-Examiner, long since defunct. He apprenticed as a machinist at the Pullman Car works and also worked as a machinist for Packard Motors. During WWII he worked as a machine shop foreman at the Manhattan Project's facility at Iowa State University, Ames.
He married Ruth Switzer in 1940 and they had three children.
In 1946 Morris and his family moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in search of a cost of living suited to a writer's income. He continued to write, publishing some 200 titles before his death in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1989. Most of these were not published under his own name. He wrote for the confession market for many years, where stories are published without attribution. He also published several later novels. One of his pen names was Herbert Pruett. None of these later works, so far as I know, had anything to do with California.
He married Ruth Switzer in 1940 and they had three children.
In 1946 Morris and his family moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in search of a cost of living suited to a writer's income. He continued to write, publishing some 200 titles before his death in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1989. Most of these were not published under his own name. He wrote for the confession market for many years, where stories are published without attribution. He also published several later novels. One of his pen names was Herbert Pruett. None of these later works, so far as I know, had anything to do with California.
As Herbert O. Pruett, incidentally, Hull turned out some pretty racy novels, all paperback originals for Beacon Books: Back of Town (1958), Scandal High (1960), Her Mother’s Lover (1962), Lost Virgin (1963), and The Abnormal Ones (1964). But as Walter Hull says above, none of these appears to be set in California.